The Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) is going in for an image makeover to project itself as a welfare organization in order to get support from the people. This is part of the State Peace and Development Council’s seven point road map to democracy, said U Htay Aung, the supervisor of Research Development, from the Network for Democracy and Development.
(more…)

Karen villagers told DVB today that the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army had forced them out of their villages as a result of ongoing fighting with the Karen Nation Union.
(more…)

The Akyab municipality has levied fees in order to pay for the electricity consumed by the army and government departments in the capital of Arakan State, said a well-known retired teacher.
(more…)

Saw Wah sat in the noisy, stifling darkness and hoped the Thai police manning the checkpoints would not discover him. He had paid 3,500 baht (about US $100) to ride in the luggage compartment of a bus for the 8-hour ride from Bangkok to Mae Sot.
(more…)

The Zo Re-unification Organization (ZORO), a non-government organization in Mizoram, India, is opposing the fencing of the Indo-Bangla-Myanmar border. It feels that border fencing will be a barrier to the reunification of the Chin-Kuki-Mizo ethnic tribes in Northeast India, Myanmar and Bangladesh.
(more…)

Showing times: Friday 6th & 13th July at 1930 GMT
Repeated: Sundays at 0830 (Not Europe), Mondays at 0930 & 1230 (Asia Pacific only), Tuesdays at 1530 and Wednesdays at 0130 (Not Asia Pacific or South Asia) & 0730 GMT http://www.bbcworld.com/Pages/Programme.aspx?id=99

Nurses On The Frontline follows nurses giving battlefield treatment to civilians caught up in a 60 year old conflict in the mountains of Eastern Burma.
(more…)

Thailand is taking steps to reform migrant worker laws and regulations but still falls short and often fails to take into account the situation faced by refugees, especially from Burma.
(more…)

India’s foreign policy on Burma should be innovative and imaginative and may synchronize with the interests of our northeast states, said T. P Sreenivasan, former Ambassador to the UN in an exclusive interview to Mizzima News.
(more…)

More than 100 paintings and sculptures by 36 Burmese artists are on show at an exhibition that opened on Tuesday in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand. (more…)

A World Bank report has cited some progress in the global fight against corruption, but warns that overall problems with stability and poor governance remain entrenched in many regions.
(more…)

The United Nations is sending relief supplies to victims of floods that swept through central Burma last week.
(more…)

Thailand’s junta leader, Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratglin, is in danger of inviting comparisons with military strongmen in neighbouring Burma, where successive generals have refused to transfer power to a civilian administration for decades.
(more…)

Dwe, one of the finest and most famous actors Burma has produced died on Wednesday evening in a Rangoon hospital.
(more…)